Voiceless

It’s been a rough autumn for us over here at the Mello household. Things have been, pilule well, pharm not so mellow.

This weekend I am banished to the bedroom to rest my voice and body since I am on my second round of laryngitis and the coughing has been doing something really painful to my insides. Even the simple act of breathing is a chore (lungs are fine though). My last round of sickness lasted for almost six weeks and so we are being extra careful this time that I don’t over-do things so I can get better faster. (I’m not going to lie though – this staying in bed all day has been the best vacation I have had in years.) I’m so lucky that the Mister has a good job and can take time off work to help me get better, especially since we don’t really have anyone else to help us out. Having three children aged 5 and under is crazy. Having three children aged 5 and under when you have no voice and are sick for weeks on end is enough to almost break a person.

So, what can I say? Fionnuala is 3 and driving us nuts. We pulled her out of preschool and out of dance because she is going through a phase where she can not stand being away from Mummy for five minutes and really, why would I want to stress her out? Just because Mummy needs to be away from her does not mean that she is ready which is a hard lesson to learn and accept. She just turned 3 when school started and is still so young and having a Mummy who has been so sick must put an unknown fear into the hearts of children that they can’t fully understand. I think my illness has been hardest on her and so she lashes out at me.

Every day I learn so much by being a parent. I just wish many of these lessons didn’t come with daily tantrums.

On the other hand, Fionnuala got over her fear of Santa:

Be afraid Santa. Be very afraid.

Heh. I miss my happy, easy-going Fionnuala but I have to hope she is still in there somewhere.

So between my illness and Fionnuala’s crazy we have scaled back on a lot of things. My main responsibility this autumn has been to take Moira to school and back. That means I have to shuffle all three kids to school and back which is a lot of work in the winter (it’s -16oC right now). I fear this is going to be a long hard winter but at the end of it Fionnuala should be out of this stage, Oonagh will be weaned and walking and Moira will be just that much more mature. I try not to wish my days away but some days it is hard. (I realize it isn’t technically winter yet but I live in Alberta which means winter starts in October.)

The good news is that my goal of having all of my Christmas shopping done before the first of December was achieved and I’m really looking forward to Christmas. I will admit that I am a little nervous about Oonagh vs The Christmas Tree but it should make for some good photos if nothing else.

In an effort to make conversation tell me what you are most looking forward to about Christmas this year? I’ll tell you mine in my next post – which I promise won’t take me months to write.

I’m so sorry you guys have been having a hard time. It’s pretty much a daily slog here, punctuated by being awakened every 90 minutes through the night by one child or another, but everyone is fairly pleasant over all. I’m looking forward to getting my massive amount of baking and cooking on the go – that’s always the best part of the holiday for me. This year, in addition to the usual Christmas dinner, we’re having a Yuletide dinner on the solstice for just the immediate family. I’m really looking forward to that – a little more nature-y and less sparkly than most of the festivities. We’re planning to put the tree up that morning, which is later than most people around here, but it’s good for us. If we do too much of the family stuff in advance, the kids are just unmanageable and wild with anticipation for a solid month, and that’s no fun for anyone. Stealth holiday attack, that’s my preferred method.

Hope you feel better soon. We are in the cycle of “in what way am I sick this week” as well, it is not nice. I am looking forward to almost two weeks off work, and not driving 4 hours a day in these horrible conditions. I hope to walk everywhere and not get in a xo&*)((^(^*%%$ car.

Oh, Christmas. I’m looking forward to all of my boys being sentient enough to be excited about it all – Emmett is now 16 months and, while he obviously won’t get much about it, he’s zooming around and gets it when we’re all excited! I’m also excited because this Christmas is the one where things start to get easier, because they will and because they have to. Also, all of my boys believe, still, which is magical. Yes, my eldest is bordering on weirdly too old but he does, and I love it, and I know next year I will have a toddler believer but I will have lost my first baby’s innocent belief. 🙂

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Welcome

I think of this as my little online space to write about things that are important to me. These days a lot of my writing has to do with trying to raise three young daughters while dealing with a terminal cancer diagnosis I received in December 2015. I have no life advice to give and chances are if my home looks clean in a photo it is because I pushed everything out of the frame of the camera.